Alternatives to the state

Texas Monthly, a supremely annoying publication, is sad about the "lurch to the right" in this week's Texas primaries. The problem, you see, is that capitalism can't function properly unless counterbalanced by other institutions--especially, in the author's view, the Democratic Party and unions.

This is a distorted shadow of something I've always believed, which is that government can't function properly unless counterbalanced by private institutions, some of the most important being families, churches, private enterprise, and voluntary civic organizations of all stripes. I'll lump unions in there if they're truly voluntary and not just tools to extract dues from unwilling members to be money-laundered for the Democratic Party. As a stretch, I'll include political parties, as long as we're not pretending there's only one.

Whatever one thinks about the voters' recent destruction of Texas RINO careers, it's not about capitalism triumphing over private institutions. Republican primary voters wanted school choice, border security, and an end to the war on Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose initiatives, especially his court-thwarted attempt to investigate election fraud, were quite popular in the Lone Star State. They'd also had it right up to here with current Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, who tends to appoint Democrats to head House committees and smothers conservative legislation in its crib when he can. Texas Republican primary voters had an immeasurably low interest in ensuring that either the Democratic Party or unions retained any power to hamstring the Texas legislature, but they're pretty open to measures to strengthen the role of families, churches, and private enterprise as a counterweight to government overreach.